Five-year old Jessica lives with her father, mother, and fourteen-year old half-brother Robert. Half-sister Brenda, twenty-two, has left home to try to make a living as an artist. Jessica's father Paul is very busy with work, and hardly interacts with her. Robert spends his days in his room listening to music. So when her mother Diane suddenly leaves to pursue a career in New Orleans, Jessica is devastated and lonely. It is no surprise that she seeks comfort elsewhere.

Upon discovering a set of ancient dolls in a nearby abandoned mansion, she quickly forms a strong attachment and prefers to spend her days in their company. Mrs. Archer, who has been the family housekeeper for years, becomes concerned about how Jessica keeps disappearing for hours on end. She follows Jessica one day and learns part of what has been going on. Mrs. Archer has strong feelings about the danger of "hants, spooks, and ghosts", and asks Jessica to never go to the old mansion again.

After Jessica has a horrible dream and screams during the night, she tells her father about the spooks and ghosts that Mrs. Archer had mentioned, whereupon he immediately fires the housekeeper. Realizing that he cannot spend time with Jessica, Paul recruits daughter Brenda to come home for the summer. Meanwhile, Jessica continues to spend time with the only friends she knows. Brenda arrives to find that Mrs. Archer has gone missing, and that Jessica's nightmares are becoming worse each night. In addition, when Diane returns to pick up Jessica and take her with her to the city, she has a terrible wreck close to the house. Robert observes some unusual circumstances related to Diane's return, and decides to investigate on his own. No one in the family has any real inkling of the real depth of the mystery . . .